


Forerunner

by BinaryCoding



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Manipulation, Murder, Red POV and Cyan POV, Violence, chaotic asshole energy, described violence to crewmates, impostor red, it’s okay because this is early into the war tho, i’m not doing anything new but i wanted to get LORE out there, my lore :), purple/blue siblings, secret second imposter ho ho, sorry if you were expecting high-brainpower heists from the imposters, the relationship is a mentor/student thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BinaryCoding/pseuds/BinaryCoding
Summary: The confidence of the rebellion only grows. MIRA Inc. has realized it all came to a head when Polus, one of their main research planets, was attacked.Ten crewmates, two of them imposters, are stationed aboard the Skeld. Their mission is to run comms and data back to an Earthbound relay. The problem? Their imposter infiltrators want to hijack the ship. And to do that they’ll need to kill everyone aboard.———————————————third-person, my take on the Among Us universe. possibly the first in a series of looks.
Relationships: Cyan/Purple (Among Us)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this isn’t the best fic in the world, but i got pretty inspired! i hope someone enjoys this, because i sure did when i was writing it!  
> (also i was braindead from playing among us for like a month straight so if the twists are obvious i’m sorry, i did my best to build up to them)

They hadn’t been expecting them. Here was a normal crewmate, sent through the patented briefing of MIRA and its affiliated companies, wearing a brightly-colored suit and nothing wrong. Nothing was wrong. MIRA astronauts were never told that anything was wrong, just that “this might have happened” and “our condolences but-“ and other excuses.

They had only just learned about the crisis. A shapeshifting alien, stolen from its own species, had been bailed out by a revolutionary group, trained for war against the MIRA conglomerate, now thirsting for vengeance. Destroying mankind’s hope at settling space. Every research lab torn apart in a frenzy, like there had been more of those terrifying aliens. Whispers that the revolutionaries were aligned with the aliens, and were working to bring about humanity’s end.

Well, today ten crewmates were being shipped aboard the Skeld, an older model of spaceship. The plan was to carry messages between comms relays further out into space. From there it would be beamed to several more stations before reaching planet Earth itself. Ten of them, piloting the old medium-sized tanker, whose hull was scarred from years of space travel.

Code waved cheerfully. That was what she learned from the Company: make an effort to be nice. A lot of her new crewmate buddies were of the same mindset, grinning and making jokes she didn’t understand. That was fine, too, because she’d learn them sooner or later. The spacesuits hid everything about one’s body. They could make all the jokes they wanted about it, but if she was as flat as a board that wasn’t exactly her fault.

Beside her was Red. He’d told her to call him Red based on the color of his suit, and he’d done so seriously. Currently, he was making a fool of himself for the amusement of the others. That was fine too. Code had never really gotten why other people liked getting embarrassed, but for a good joke? Sure. That was fine, she guessed. He seemed like a fun kind of guy.

She was just glad that her visor was opaque enough that it hid her anxiety. She was worried, the feeling gnawing in her heart like a dragon at the roots of her feelings. What was she going to do? How was she going to understand them, people who’d been one at least one more flight than her? Her fingers got clammy in the suit and she couldn’t get her mind off of the thought.

Someone smacked her in the back good-naturedly and she was brought back to reality swiftly. “Yo! So protocol dictates we address each other by suit colors. I’m Blue! Not to be confused with your blue, I guess, but-“

Code nodded, glancing back. Sure enough, the crewmate besides her was dressed in dark blue. His suit had a differently-shaped oxygen pack, and a few structural adjustments, but it didn’t look too different from hers. “Nice to, uh, meet you too! I-I’m Cyan, I guess.”

Blue grinned, his suit visor tuning to a transparent window. Code could make out a nose that had definitely been broken before, and surprisingly clear blue eyes. “Well, you seem the shy type, but that’s alright! There’s an awful lot of us guys on the ship though, only other person you’ll probably get along with is Purple.” He pointed. Code could vaguely make out a feminine shape in the purple spacesuit. “But hey, hang out with the boys! We don’t bite.”

“It’s not exactly like she chose to be here, Blue,” Purple scowled, moving closer. “We all got assigned here. And if I catch you harassing her I’ll pummel you myself.”

“Aw, don’t be like that, P!”

Code looked between the two. They knew each other? Purple scowled again, glaring back at Code. “He’s the captain of the ship. Don’t get him mad.”

Code nodded hesitantly. “I, uh, I see.”

“Loosen up a little, you’re going to be fine!” Blue stated, with another hand on her shoulder. Code flinched. Not that she’d intended to, but it had come out of nowhere. That had scared her. For a moment, she’d sworn she’d bitten on her own tongue, but thankfully it was just her teeth clacking together somewhat painfully. “Nothing’s gonna go wrong on this ship! I’ll make sure of it.”

Purple rolled her eyes behind her visor, and Code could tell because of the crossed arms and the tilt of her head. “Oh please. If anything, this old thing’s gonna break in two, I swear. It’s not mechanically sound anymore.”

“Relax, the Company said it’s alright!”

“That’s what they say for liability purposes, you know!” Purple sighed. Then, looking at Code, she made a noise of confusion. “Huh? They’re still giving out older suits to newbies?”

Code looked up. “Oh, uh, you could, uh, could tell?”

Purple nodded. “Blue may be the captain, but I’ve been around a bit longer than he has. They just pushed the newest model, I’m not surprised you’re running around in an older one. You can’t even change the visor, see?” She motioned to the side of her head, and her visor thinned. Code could see bright brown eyes, a beauty mark under her left, and wondered how Purple looked under the suit. Her anxiety was slowly replaced by her curiosity. Who were all these people, really?

She wanted to know. That’s what she was here for. Getting to know everyone. And doing her job. Latter before the former.

“I, uh, I see. Man, that kinda sucks.” Code muttered the last part. “I think that’d be kinda cool to have.”

“Well, unless the oxygen goes out, we probably won’t be needing our helmets anyways!” Blue cheered, and Purple placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him from taking it off then and there. “Anyways, Purp, I gotta go talk to everyone else. You know what you’re doing?”

“Of course,” the person in question repleid, and Blue peeled off from their little trio and joined the guys. Purple looked to Code. “Have you done any of the work before?”

Code shook her head. “Nuh-uh. The Company didn’t teach me anything about it.” Technically, they should’ve, but her briefing was interrupted by the alert that war had broken out and her immediate ship-off to a different station. “I think I’d definitely learn something from you, though. The people teaching my class weren’t any help.”

Purple laughed. Code tuned her suit comms so that it wasn’t quite so loud. “Alright, come shadow me for a couple of days, and I’ll teach you how these tasks are done! It’ll be more interesting than our previous runs anyways.”

Code nodded and whne the cafeteria meeting got dispersed, followed like a puppy at Purple’s heels.

The ship’s alloy plating was cold. Red glared towards the massive cafeteria window. The expanse of space lay outside, the stars gently passing by as the ship flew its course back and forth. It was peaceful. He was left with his thoughts.

Placing a hand on the glass, his other stealthily felt for the inside of his suit. Pressed against his side was the thick holsters he’d been given, the gifts of his cause under his suit. He could tell that the color’d been drenched in blood before, but there was something about the material that didn’t let it oxidize. He could kill and no one would know it was him, if he was particularly careful.

He’d already established his alibi. He was the funny jokester, the one who caused mild chaos but for everyone’s enjoyment. No one would know what his mission was, except for his partner, but they’d already been playing the good crewmate. The fun one. Establishing their innocence right off the bat. All of them, the same. He could see them right now in the group, waving cheerfully towards someone else.

Red sighed. He didn’t like those Imposters, as they’d called them, but they needed the information more than the revolutionaries did, and this was just one way to prove it. Prove their trust. He looked off to the side, and made his way to the download node so he could hook his tablet to it.

Rule One. Fake it well, and they’ll never notice that you’re not the same.

Code poked around in the wires until they’d been sorted out clearly, and she wrapped some electrical tape around the ends to make sure they were bound. “Okay! That’s how that’s done, right, Purple?”

The crewmate nodded. “You’re picking it up quickly. I’m glad that you’re nothing like the other newbies we get around here.”

Code hummed cheerfully and got up from the floor, closing the panel with her foot. “Okay, what’s next?”

“Well, we’ll have to go-“ Purple was cut off when a siren sounded. Next came the ear-splitting shriek of static in their comms, and Code fell over. It hurt. More than she thought it would. The sound drilled into her head and Code had to hold it, couldn’t do anything curled up on the floor. Purple staggered back up, and bolted from the room.

It felt like forever until the sound finally snapped off. Code gasped for breath. Sweat rolled down her arms. She hadn’t even realized she’d been shaking until she stopped gripping her arms quite so tightly. It hadn’t quite been the same pitch as the one that haunted her memories, but it was enough to keep her shaking as the sound of Purple’s boots clanked back into electrical.

“Cyan! You’re okay, right, kid?” Purple asked, gently cradling her. Code, still shivering, made a noise of assent. Purple frowned. She’d kept her visor transparent while she was mentoring Code, and it made reading her expressions easy. “Geez, I’d be shaking too if that was my first time hearing a comms sabotage.”

“S-sabotage?” Code asked, feeling her teeth clack together. “We’ve been... sabotaged?”

Purple nodded grimly. “We’ve got a hunch, and the ship’s scans confirmed it. There are ten people on this ship. Two of them are fakes, revolutionaries or aliens, doesn’t matter. One of them hacked comms and caused the sabotage.” She looked up briefly. Code wondered if it was at the vents. “Come on, we’re going to go see if there’s a body.”

“B-body?” Code managed to get out. Her mouth wouldn’t work quite right. And the thought of one of the crew dying? Now? During that? She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Purple pulled her to her feet and Code braced herself against the electrical box before following her mentor’s brisk footsteps.

Suddenly the ship felt constrictive. Small. Code wondered if people usually felt like that. Trapped in the ship. She shook her head and managed to pick up her pace.

Purple walked past the lower engine, vigilant in scanning the area, and disappeared into the hallway above. Code could smell blood in the area, though, and peered into a vent. A trail of it, leading down to the right. Its crimson color was illuminated by the small flashlight she kept in one of her suit pockets. That meant it was most likely in the ship’s reactor, it seemed. She bolted to catch up to Purple.

The crewmate in question was watching the ship on the monitors, the cameras lighting up. “Doesn’t look like anyone was here, huh,” she remarked. Code peeked the other way, entering the reactor room. The giant generator whirred before her, its harsh white lights casting stark shadows on everything. Code looked to the right and screamed.

The body was technically in one piece. You could say that, if you could ignore that one of the arms had been chopped off and thrown haphazardly against the wall. Slash marks littered the corpse, its disemboweled remains splayed out near the manifolds terminal. The scraps of suit still intact were a bright orange. Bloody footprints led into the vent nearby.

Purple rushed in, caught sight of the body, and hit the red button on her waist and started yelling. Code felt dizzy, in comparison, and watched the world spin as she passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red, human imposter, agent of chaos.  
> Also Code, Cyan, asks some questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imposter gameplay is fun to write. red is inspired by my agent of chaos friend, but there’s a point where they diverge  
> tw: mentioned violence

Red wondered what his Imposter buddy was going to do. Technically they could start killing. He figured, actually, that they were new; that they wouldn’t be able to escape the group, and that it was up to him to make an opening. That was fine.

There were eight of them now sitting around the central cafeteria table. Black and Green, both fairly sturdy and equally strong, had hauled off the remains to the storage airlock to be ejected. Red had spent the last ten minutes with Yellow and Lime at the scene, scrubbing the floor clean. Purple had taken Cyan to medbay, to get the newbie some rest, but had assured Blue that it hadn’t been either of them. Blue seemed to trust that, and had allowed Cyan time to rest in medbay.

Given what he’d heard from Purple, Red probably figured it was a good thing. Seeing a human body mangled like that was no doubt fairly traumatizing. He’d had to do it to make it appear like those Imposter aliens had done it, but the truth was he had no idea how they managed such brutalization. He’d been tired out from just trying to get through one limb, forget the torso!

He looked around. Purple and Blue were across from him, and then it was Black, Orange’s vacant spot, and Pink. Then him. Cyan would be sitting to his left had she not been preoccupied. Lime, Yellow, White, and Green completed the table. In between them all, the emergency button glowed red on the table behind its glass box casing.

“So. What do we know?” Blue asked. Unlike his introductions, this tone was very serious. His face reflected that.

Purple cleared her throat. “Cams had no recent records. I saw Cyan coming up, she was having trouble from the comms sabotage. Her outdated suit probably amplified its volume. We were with each other, though, so I can say for certain it wasn’t her.” Purple looked at each of them in turn. “It was a vent kill. Next to the reactor manifolds.”

Red shook his head. “Couldn’t have been me, I was hanging out with Yellow and Black in navigation!”

That wasn’t a lie. He’d crawled as fast as he could with his build, locking down all of the top-side doors with a quick hack, murdered Orange, and then crawled back into the hallway before Purple had been on cams. Then he’d walked nonchalantly into navigation, said hello and made small talk with Yellow and Black, and faked setting the steering on the ship. Sometimes it needed to be reset back on course. He’d pushed it as far right as possible. Just for fun. His agent of chaos schtick always worked.

Black nodded with a grunt. “That’s true. He walked in from shields.”

“I was with Green!” White exclaimed. “We werein administration, and we got pretty concerned when the cafeteria doors locked! But Green was having trouble swiping his card, so I wanted to go help him. I wasn’t on the table at all.”

They would have caught him if he was. Red kept his poker face, but internally he was grinning. Really? That easy? They weren’t on guard despite the threat of a shapeshifting alien?

Well. _They_ had no way of knowing if this ship was the one. But he had all the information at his disposal.

Blue nodded. “I was charging shields, and then fixed communications. Then I went to download data in comms.”

“That’s funny,” Lime remarked. “Orange was still alive when I went into reactor.”

“When was that?”

“An hour or so ago,” Lime said, with a finger to their visor in thought. “Though, unlocking manifolds can get pretty tough. I was aligning the engines, and then got trapped in the cafeteria for a bit.”

Pink shook their head. “I can’t help. I was struggling with the fuel for the engines, and the wiring in storage. Sorry.”

Blue waved. “That’s fine.” He looked down, hands crossed on the table. “It was probably a while ago. The killer had plenty of time to brutalize the body.”

Purple sighed. “Great. Lime, you’re absolutely sure you didn’t kill him?”

“Of course!” The bright green crewmate waved his hands in a gesture implying he was innocent. “There’s no way I’d just kill Orange on our third day! He isn’t _that_ annoying!”

“I’d like to point out that there are two of them on this ship,” Red stated, “and it was probably a kill done with the vents. Someone could just be covering for their partner here.”

The air went from tense to heavy. Blue coughed. “That means that you three are cleared for this kill. The rest of us are not.” Paranoia hung heavy in the room. It was a matter of who said something first that would push the ship over the edge.

Finally Purple sighed. It was a long-suffering one that nearly betrayed how tired she seemed to be, judging by her slumped shoulders. “If we don’t have information, we’ll waste time in this meeting suspecting each other. Just... keep an eye out, guys? We’ll have to skip our vote of confidence for now.” She got up. “I’m going to go check up on Cyan. And then I’m going to go do some tasks before we settle down for the night.”

Red had to admit that was pretty business-like of her. No one could argue with that, as Purple stalked away towards the ship medbay. It was something about the way she carried herself, he supposed. Everyone else did the same, some with heavier movements and some with motions that implied they were thinking about talking more. Red took note.

If his Imposter buddy was going to play good cop, then he’d have to play bad cop.

Code blearily opened her eyes. This was... the medical bay? She was definitely sitting on a bed, so yes, medbay. Or the crew bunks, but those were one ladder trip up, so probably medbay. Her body felt heavy.

That made sense, too. She’d been exhausted from learning the trade from Purple, and seeing Orange’s body like that hadn’t helped. She hadn’t really gotten to know him, but he’d seemed alright, if a bit loud. It was an effort to coordinate her limbs to move, though, and Code sat up straight.

Thankfully Purple hadn’t removed her helmet. Code had been afraid Purple would look at her and write her off as a lost cause. This poor newbie, who couldn’t handle the sight of a dead body? How pathetic.

Code would really have liked to know who killed Orange, but she had some suspicions that simply couldn’t get out.

... actually, she’d have liked to have gotten to know Orange more. Though hanging at the crewmate’s side 24/7 would have been annoying for sure. Not to mention all sorts of suspicious.

The heavy, familiar clunks of Purple’s boots caused Code to look up. “Oh! You’re awake,” Purple said, seemingly surprised. “You seemed like you’d be out a while. Get some air?”

Code nodded. “Just put my helmet back on.”

“Aw, I’d love to see the girl beneath it,” Purple said jokingly. Code shrugged with a little laugh.

“I’m no one special, really. Teach, what’s next?”

“Teach?! Hey, you’ve only been here three days!”

“Better get the nicknames out of the way, then!”

“Geez, you-!” Purple seemed angry, but Code could see she was joking. The other crewmate sighed, the brief moment of jokes forgotten.

“... you sure you’re okay?” Code tipped her head to the side when she asked, then patted the bed across from her. Purple sat down.

Code sat equally as quiet until the other woman spoke. “That’s the first accident we’ve had in a while. The Company doesn’t like talkin’ about it, but sometimes it happens. Thought I was lucky it wouldn’t happen to me.”

“It came around, huh,” Code mentioned offhandedly. “Was this kind of thing widespread before?”

“No, not at all. You could talk to fifty different crew members, all from differing jobs, and they’d tell you the same. Nothing ‘exciting’ happened. Ever since those raids on that research planet, though, things changed. They’re getting bolder.” Purple’s helmet hissed, and Code was treated to her mentor’s visage as she pulled it off.

Most of the crewmates were pale-skinned, though Purple had a yellowish tinge to her skin that Code assumed was natural based on the fluorescent lighting messing with the colors. The lines of her cheekbone was hard against her neck, tapering into gentle curves at her chin. She looked up and those bright brown eyes met Code’s unflinching visor, wavy dark brown hair splayed out from where it’d been held back by the helmet. The beauty mark moved as Purple smiled up at her, thin lips parted to reveal the faintest glimpse of white teeth. Smiling? For what?

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to serve the Company the best I can. I mean, they saved me ‘n Blue ‘n so many other people. I didn’t really care about the sketchy business practices, I’m just glad I have something, y’know?” she continued. “And I’m glad there are going to be people like you on our side.”

Code could feel the anxiety setting in again, but forced as much enthusiasm into her voice as she replied. “y-Yeah. I’m glad to have mentors like you. You guys are, mm, teaching me so much, it’s hard to stay inactive.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it! This is the easy part, hard part’s just doing it for so long,” Purple replied, an easygoing smile filling her face. “You may be the shyest kid I know, but you have a heart of gold, really, Cyan.”

Code couldn’t help but blush a little, even though it was hidden behind the visor. And it wasn’t really blushing so much as her heart feeling like it grew a size to hold all the warm feelings inside her until she exploded from happiness. But it was certainly a start! “Oi, uh, Cy?”

“I’m fine, just, uh,” Code stammered. “I’m, uh, well, it’s, I just... uh, no one’s ever, uh, really, I guess, uh, complimented me.”

Purple was instantly overtaken by shock. “Wha-wait, really? But you seem like such a nice kid!”

For a moment Code felt the white walls of the medbay close in and she closed her eyes to focus on the conversation. Remembering. “Before, well, uh, before the Company, it wasn’t, I guess, uh, the best of times.”

Code could remember. She’d been abused, and even now she could feel the phantom sensations of knives ripping through her skin. “My... parents, uh, they had to abandon me when I was little. I got, how do you say it, uh, passed around to, uh, to a lot of people. Lots of moving. Small spaces. Not... not any fun.”

Purple looked at her with pity. Code could vaguely remember a face like that and looked down at her lap to avoid the gaze. “It was a lot of that... didn’t help with my schooling. I really wanted to learn a lot! But that kind of thing messes with you. So, uh, I ended up running away for a while. Fell in with people, well, people I didn’t know I could trust or not. They were, uh, welcoming, sure, but hm, never really trusted them fully. And then I got the idea from someone I did trust to join, uh, join up with the company. So, uh, that’s kind of it. Don’t like going into depth there.”

Purple took one of Code’s hands in hers. “Kiddo, it’s alright. We’ll figure out who these imposters are and get down to the bottom of this. And when it’s over, hey, maybe I’ll take you in! Or I can go talk to one of the higher-ups, make sure you’re treated well.”

Code shook her head. “I... too many people say that. I’m sure you’re not like them, but...” She looked at the hand Purple was holding, still shaking. God, her anxiety... “I know you’re not like them, but I can’t imagine the Company caring about someone like me. I was desperate.”

Purple smiled gently. Everything about her was moving so slowly. Did she think Code was broken? “That’s fine. I was too. Me ‘n Blue were so desperate to get away from our folks that we ran away to join up. A lot of people have the same situation. You just need to look.” She glanced at the clock in her visor before putting it back on. “Now, we should probably get going. Tasks don’t do themselves.”

Code nodded. “Thanks, uh, thanks for listening, Purple. You’re really nice.”

Purple directed a thumbs-up to her. “Don’t mention it, Cy! People are gonna ask about the tough girl act anyways if you did!”

Code laughed, and then got up, feeling her heart lift a little. “Yeah! I’m ready to go!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red commits death.  
> Cyan has an ideological conflict.

Red yawned, pressing the button on the display in medbay. All those blood samples... even now they were doing tests on what they retrieved from Polus. He wondered idly if his Imposter buddy would have known they were doing tests on their kind here. He eyed his tablet. Downloading some of the ship data to send to the rebel servers suddenly sounded very promising.

He felt for his knife. Beside it, the standard hand cannon they had all been provided. Except for the Imposters, but Red figured those guys were weapons all their own. He never understood why shapeshifting aliens didn’t simply just kill everyone on the ship. Did he get the only alien who believed in the Company?

No, there had to be more than that. He had to bide his time. Speaking of, it seemed people were coming in for their medical scans. Yellow and Pink hopped in, both of them waving. Red forced his crewmate act back on. “Oh, hi guys! Didn’t see ya there.”

Pink nodded. “Oh, no prob dude. Yellow, your scan’s gonna go easy with the two of us here. Right Red?”

He nodded. “Yep, I’m sure of it!”

Yellow, hands up in the air as the green ring came up, pointed with his right hand. “Yo, dude, you know that you don’t have to stick around for that one? It’s one hit and then you can come back like an hour or so later.”

“Oh, never got told that,” Red muttered, in genuine surprise. “Man, all these shortcuts kind of blend together. The other day I kept closing my tablet during a download and didn’t realize that interrupted it!”

Pink laughed. “Yeah, dude, these Company-issue tablets are trash sometimes.”

“Welp, guess I’ll be back in a bit! You guys keep doing you,” Red remarked, exiting the medical bay. Lime was heading that way too, huh. He waved. “Hey, Lime! Where’d you come from?”

Lime sighed. “Oh, electrical. Every time I go in there, it’s so dark all the damn time! Makes me feel like I’ll get murdered.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Red said reassuringly. “We’ll catch that murderer in no time!”

Lime nodded enthusiastically and walked past medbay. Engines, then? Red took note of that and checked admin, swiping his card in the process. It was a fake ID, but would serve well enough for the card reader. The logs had to be downloaded and reuploaded to a proper computer to be viewable, and on a ship as old as this they didn’t have that. Good. He checked the holographic mapping table. Two in reactor, two in medbay, one in sto- no, three in electrical, him in admin, and one in left engine. Hm. It’d be easier to pick someone off if they weren’t buddying up. He’d have to make it so.

With a tap on his pad, the oxygen pipes on the ship abruptly closed. He slipped into the vent, popping out near the actual oxygen module. This ship required two codes to override the manual lockdown of the oxygen synthesizer, and one of them was up here. Cool. He peeked around the corner.

It seemed that Yellow and Pink had split up. Right now Pink was booking it down from the weapons firing platform, the crewmate checking behind him. Red seized the opportunity. As much as he’d liked to have Pink around, there was no chance he could afford to lose. The bootsteps thumped closer.

Pink rounded the corner and Red’s knife buried itself into his neck, cleanly slicing through the neck and splattering blood across the wall. Red hacked at his ankle and shoulder too before practically sprinting up to weapons, leaping over the pooling blood, and jumped down into the vent near the data module.

Next was cafeteria. Yellow passed by, and Red checked for others before pulling himself up moments later, trailing behind Yellow. The crewmate rounded the corner, yelped, and then hit his report button. Red nearly ran into him from behind and sent the other crewmate tumbling into the body.

Ah. Another meeting.

Code could feel the atmosphere growing heavier by the second. She was nervously seated between Red and a twitchy Lime. Blue scowled audibly from beneath his helmet.

“Another person dead. Goddammit,” he muttered to himself. “Yellow? Info?”

The crewmate, who was still checking if he had blood on his shoes, had the telltale signs of shock leaking into his voice. “I was just with him... we were in medbay. I went to administration to put in the first overwrite code, then I made my way back around to oxygen and... his body...”

Red nodded, unusually sober. “I came up from trash, checked that the admin code was good, and then saw Yellow moving for the next one. I... Pink’s body is right around the corner, when you walk down from weapons. I could see the blood from the hallway.”

Code could see the image of the first one still burned in her mind and made an effort to be composed. She managed to get out a question, which was good enough. “Where, uh, w-who did you see around there?”

Red shook his head. “No one, but Yellow was there first.” Yellow shook his head.

Lime shrugged. “Might as well get into info. Checked cameras for a bit. Red entered admin, swiped card, and checked the table, but I got off before he left.”

Black looked thoughtful. “I was with Blue and Purple in electrical. Maybe Purple, someone was at the data module, but I didn’t see exactly who it was.”

Purple nodded. “That was me.”

Blue nodded. “I just came to flip a switch, so before the sabotage I left electrical and went to the left engine.” He tapped his fingers. “Someone passed me entering electrical.”

“That was me,” White replied. “I was coming from security. I didn’t see Lime.”

“I-I was with Green in reactor! He was, uh, helping me start it,” Code tagged on. “He was, hm, uh, over by the manifolds before I, uh, started having trouble though.”

Green nodded. “That Simon Says replica is a bitch to work with.”

A brief pause. Blue seemed to be frowning, brow furrowed in concentration. “Wait. White, you came from security and didn’t see Lime?”

White nodded. “Yep. Cafeteria, walked past medbay when Pink and Yellow went in. Finished aligning the fuse in right engine. Checked security, didn’t see Lime. Checked reactor, saw Green and Cyan at the center, went down and passed you in electrical.”

Panic filled Lime’s voice. “No, I swear I was there! Probably after you, anyways, but-“

Code looked to Green. “Uh, Green, did you see him?”

Green put a hand to his chin. “Hm. No, don’t think so. I remember looking behind you to make sure you didn’t get knifed by someone, and especially when the oxygen got sabotaged. I was definitely staring backwards then. I saw a flash of White one time, but no Lime.”

Red nodded. “I see. I didn’t see the camera on when I went to go swipe my card.”

Lime motioned wildly. “Listen!!! How could you not see it when the camera’s right in the doorway!”

Blue slammed the table. “Lime, what was the timeframe. Before that.”

“Easy! I walked to cafeteria, did the trash, walked past medbay, saw Red there, went from engines to security, and checked to see if Red was in admin and he was!!”

Red put his hand to his chin. “I... yeah, I remember meeting you. But that was pretty early in the day... you could have dropped into security at any time before that?”

Purple looked at Lime. “You were also in the area of the first murder. It’s not improbable that you could use the vents to get around the ship.”

Code frowned. She wanted more information. They were eight people arguing in a ship about how two of them could have committed murder. She needed more information before the story could paint itself in for her. “Mhm. No one else was there?” Silence.

Blue sighed. “If we wanted a fairly safe vote of confidence, we can vote out the commonality in both these cases. That would be Lime.”

“No! I’m not the imposter! You have to believe me,” Lime desperately proclaimed. “Listen! People who can follow me can make sure I can prove my innocence!”

Green nodded. “Then you can do just that. I’m skipping the vote, but you know where I am.”

“If you get killed we’ll know who it was,” Blue remarked. “Anyone else want to keep tabs on people?”

Red motioned. “Maybe someone makes sure Yellow’s doing alright? I know him and Pink were pretty close, maybe...?”

“I, I can take him to medbay for a bit,” Code replied. Purple nodded.

“I’ll go with, just in case,” she followed up. “Doubt it would’ve happened, though.” Code looked for a moment at Red, but couldn’t understand the implication. Maybe she’d ask Purple.

Blue nodded. “Then we’re done again. Next time we probably should vote someone out, otherwise we’re handing the imposters the ship.” He leaned back, pulling up his visor to pinch the bridge of his nose. “God...”

Code gently shook Yellow. “Hey, uh, Yellow, come with me.”

The other crewmate didn’t object when Code led him to a bed to rest. Purple sat on a different bed. “Man, I can’t imagine... so quickly like that?”

Code nodded, taking a seat on same bed. “Yeah... I wonder how they did it. If you guys would be coming out of electrical from the bottom, then they had no choice but to go back up, right? Then they’d have run into Yellow...”

“The vents must have been how they got away. That, or they waited in navigation until the body was reported,” Purple replied. “Latter is unlikely. The footprints would’ve been obvious.”

Code nodded. She couldn’t get the smell of iron out of her mind. “What’s up with the vents anyways? Wouldn’t it be convenient for us to use them?”

Purple shook her head. “The vents are for airflow purposes. On old ships like these, a lot of them lead to smaller ducts, and to the oxygen synthesizer. A person could only crawl between the largest connected ones, and those are barely big enough for them anyways. Not to mention they’re locked. A while back, the rebel insurgents got a hold of a lot of Company data and synthesized a key that would open the vents on contact.”

Code nodded. “So only the rebels can open them, and they can only go between certain areas.”

“I mean, if you were a shapeshifting Imposter, you could just slip through the vents too. Not that I’m saying you are!” Purple hastily added. “Still. If you see someone coming out of a vent, there’s a high chance they’re one of the rebels. They’re hella mobile.”

Code nodded again. Yellow groaned. “I couldn’t protect him...”

“It’s okay, we didn’t know either,” Code said, in an attempt to reassure Yellow. “I’m sure we would have been on the case if we hadn’t been stuck in the middle of our tasks.”

Purple nodded. “The data nodes are slow bitches. Everything on these ships feels designed to keep you there for longer, Christ.”

Yellow managed to weakly laugh. “Wish I could teach the Company some lessons in optimization.”

Purple laughed at the joke. Code chuckled. “Can’t be helped. If they optimize it they’ll have to lay off a third of us,” Purple replied nonchalantly. Code understood the gist. They’d be out of a job.

Yellow scowled. “They should put me on the frontlines next.”

That, they had no response to. Code got up, gently squeezing Yellow’s arm. “We’ll be back in a bit, see if you’re feeling better. Don’t worry about your tasks today, alright?” She took his small list, looking at it. Alright... only distributors in electrical to calibrate and steering. Code left with Purple, the two quietly trekking through the halls.

“The frontlines?” Code asked, after some time. “To what?”

Purple looked at the right engine chugging away. “It’s... the Company controls Earth and all those research planets, see? So, we might be going to war with the alien race the Imposters come from. They’ll find a way to spin it into terorrism, I’m sure.”

Code couldn’t help but stop in her tracks. Purple noticed, turning around. “Cyan?”

“I...” she sighed, deciding to keep walking. “I don’t agree with that. If we were keeping them on a research planet for experimentation or whatever, we shouldn’t be declaring war on them.”

Purple, surprised at the forcefulness behind her words, caught up to Code stalking towards reactor. “Hey, that’s... a pretty strong opinion to voice, considering the job you have right now.”

“You said it yourself, I’m young. Things that seem obvious to older people get lost on the young ones like me,” Code snapped back, walking up to the panel that started the reactor. She had to finish this before she could get started on Yellow’s tasks. “It’d be a massive loss of life for both sides. And they didn’t do anything wrong.”

Purple had conceded the point, judging by her long-suffering sigh. “I know, just... damn, you got heated.”

Code didn’t dignify that with an answer, and pushed her five panels. The reactor hummed and she turned back. “I’m sorry, it just... it grinds my gears, that’s all. People keep thinking they can do what they want, without consequences.” She looked off to the side. “I know I’m just... lashing out, but it genuinely makes me mad, that’s all.”

Purple patted her head. “Yeah, sometimes life is like that.” She looked up. “Let’s go check the cams, alright?” Code nodded and followed along, her hands still shaking.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red commits Chaos: Doubles Rule.

Red tapped the side of his helmet. Hm. The sound of different conversations filled it, if faintly. That was a specialty of his, bugging the communications network to listen in. Right now, quite the interesting conversation between Purple and Cyan, and Blue talking to himself. The poor guy, full of responsibility. If he took Blue out the squad would fall apart.

A wonderful destabilization, but the last time he did one of those the crew opinion had turned pretty swiftly and he was forced to vote his partner out into the cold embrace of space. Unfortunate.

Green was with Lime, who was in navigation. Red thought. He would have enough time to hop into medbay and kill Yellow, but how would he prevent Purple and Cyan from seeing the body? He frowned. Then, he got an idea. He snuck into medbay.

“Hey, Yellow, feeling any better?” he asked. Politeness was key here. With his other hand he quick-queued a door hack on his tablet before putting it aside. Luckily Yellow was lying down, his suit arm placed over his head. His helmet sat on one of the other beds.

The man pulled up his arm, looking at Red with one bleary green eye. “Huh? Oh... Red. Didn’t see you there. I’m... fine. Might have scared off that newbie, Cyan.” He frowned. “You seem pretty busy. Didn’t see you behind me.”

Red kicked himself up onto one of the other beds. “That’s fine! I wouldn’t have expected it, anyways. You saw the body before me. Credit to you.”

“I didn’t want to... Pink didn’t need to die. He was just trying to pay off his academy debt.” Yellow blinked, and then narrowed his eyes. His blond hair swept over his eyes, pressed to his head and held there by both his arm and a sheen of sweat. “Hey, Red, why didn’t you bring up my scan during the meeting?”

“It slipped my mind! Honest,” Red replied. “I was caught up with Lime being suspiciously dodgy,” he tagged on. He glanced down to his tablet, and subtly activated the locking mehanism hack. The doors to medbay slid shut and he looked back, pushing his tablet away a short time after. “Huh. Those don’t usually close.”

Yellow placed his hand fully over his eyes again with a groan, and Red grinned under his helmet, hopping off the bed. With another command to lock all the rest of the doors, he pulled his knife from its nano-cleaning sheath and plunged the blade into Yellow’s exposed throat.

Having to fight a human was hard. It was lucky for Red that he had practice. Being a mercenary before he was a human imposter made it easy for him to fight the woefully-underprepared crewmate, ripping his throat open and pushing fingers into his eyes. The popping of his eyeballs as they were crushed mercilessly was combined with Red’s consistent hacking at his chest, carving the body open. Limbs twitched and fell still, and Red had to be extra certain no one could figure out it was knifework.

He hated having to be vicious to a body. It felt wrong. But the Imposter still hadn’t shown its preferred method of ripping people apart. So he’d have to improvise, and become the boogeyman.

With that done, he wiped the blood from his hands and knife onto the suit of the newly-dead Yellow. Poor guy. Luckily Red had the smarts to put him out of his misery quickly. He checked the vent, hopping inside. Security was just now filled with Purple and Cyan, still locked in animate discussion that floated over to Red’s ears as he crawled quietly.

“I get that you’re mad about it, but some things you can’t change.” Purple, assumably, was watching cameras. Cyan was next to her, making sense of the four displays. “You should know that, I guess.”

“Doesn’t make it easier,” Cyan replied. Red smiled. Despite not really caring for his fellow crewmates, he enjoyed hearing them evolve as their little game of cat and mouse went on. Cyan sounded right at home now, if also furious. Was she learning about the Imposters’ treatment? “I dunno. If... if someone close to you ended up being a shapeshifting alien, how would you react?”

Purple scoffed. “Well, if they were going to kill me, I’d try to fight back. I mean, they were going to anyways!”

“But...” Cyan seemed to ponder that. “That wasn’t the question I was asking. In a normal situation, uh, your buddy is an imposter, what do you do? They haven’t expressed ill will, they’re just trying to get by.”

“Well, for one, that’s impossible,” Purple replied. “But... well, if that really did happen, I’d try to do my best to make friends with them. Imagine that being first contact, y’know? If it came down to it, though, the Company could order me to kill them. Then I’d have to.”

“Hm... okay. I still, uh, think-“ Cyan’s voice slowly faded away. What a thought, that one. Always thinking the best of people. Red crawled past the security vent, entering electrical and pulling out of the vent. Alright. No one here!

He exited electrical, moving to storage. No one should be entering medbay. He called that door first, locking it again. Then, with a quick check into admin, he saw what had to be Green and Lime going from weapons to cafeteria. Good. When his interface allowed him to, he hit the lights sabotage. With a crackle, the charge in the ship lights exceeded its maximum, and the lights turned off. Only the dimmest glow of the siding lights lit their paths. Red grinned and sidled from admin to storage, waiting at the entrance.

Sure enough, Green and Lime came down. Lime was first, nervously humming to himself, and Green silently trailed behind. Alright. Shame, Green was a good guy too.

Red slammed into Green as Lime rounded the corner, unable to hear the two struggle as Red drew out the silent hand cannon and pressed the knife down into Green’s throat. The sturdier man pushed at his arm, but Red brought out the hand cannon with his other hand and shot.

The muffled shot would have been audible had Lime not already turned into electrical, and it sent bits of skull, brain, and blood all over the upper entrance to storage. The now-headless body’s arm thudded to the ground. Red cracked the ribcage open with his knife and immediately turned, moving down and around the crates strapped into the middle of storage. To electrical! And lights!

He reached it as Lime flicked the last switch. “Ah, hm, we- AHHH!!!!” He yelled. “AH- Red? Jesus, don’t spring up on people like that!”

“Sorry, I was just coming in! I didn’t think you heard me. You get lights done?” Red asked.

“Mhm, yeah, I did,” Lime warily remarked. “H-wait! Did you see Green on your way here?”

Red put a finger to his chin. “Hm. Nope. I went around the bottom of those crates in storage. No one in sight.” He didn’t mention that with the night-vision function illegally downloaded into his visor, he’d seen everything. Well, up to a certain distance, but it was good enough for what people like him needed.

Lime screamed a little. “Ah! Oh no, where’s Green-“

The alarm interrupted him with a blaring siren, and their tablets confirmed the worst. “A dead body has been found!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> True to their word, Lime gets ejected. Also, crew remember that emergency meetings exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for anyone who was expecting more chapters of this; i got super busy for most of december and into the new year. this fic should hopefully update on thursdays, and we’re actually almost done! thank you for following along!

Red had a firm grip on Lime when the two stepped around Green’s headless body and headed up to the cafeteria. Cyan had moved, trying to seem even smaller as she deliberately tried not to look at the body. Couldn’t handle it? Well, Red had figured. If her reaction to Orange’s body was any guess. This wasn’t exactly standard procedure.

Blue, coming from the weapons side of the ship, paled when he saw the two tracking blood everywhere. “What the hell?!” White trailed in behind him.

Cyan pointed a shaky finger down the hall. Red found the situation tasty. The despair brought chills down his body. It was kind of nice watching the faceless astronauts of the Company fear for their lives. He changed into a very serious tone. “We passed Green’s body coming here. You know what he said earlier.”

“I didn’t- Someone else did it!” Lime screamed.

Purple was escorting Black. “Definitely not fresh,” the stoic crewmate replied. “Yellow died early.”

Red nodded, keeping a firm hand on Lime, who looked like he just wanted to book it as fast as possible. “Green died during lights. Lime was the only one who saw Green before then, and of course last time we were at the table he said if Green died-“

“It actually wasn’t!!!! I lost sight of the guy! Lights got sabotaged and I couldn’t see shit!” Lime yelled.

Blue gained that look of contemplation again. “Well, as much as that would be nice to trust, Lime, two people are dead. The other dangerous element on this ship decided to act. We’ll spare you if you tell us who your partner is.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!! I haven’t done anything, and I don’t know who the imposters are!”

“Well, A for effort,” Purple replied. “I know who I’m voting. Once we get him off the ship, we’ll be a little safer. They won’t be able to take it over.”

Cyan, moping, raised her head to nod. “Mhm.” She looked to her tablet’s interface. Or well, Red might have assumed she did. It was hard to tell with the both of them wearing older suits. If her visor was pointed in the general direction she was probably looking at it. With two pokes she confirmed her vote. First.

Blue sighed. “That’s one down.”

“NO!! It isn’t!!! I’m not the imposter!!” Lime yelled. Red increased his grip strength.

“That trick only works so many times,” he stated coldly.

“Not joking?” Black asked.

Red shook his head. “We’re down four people. Why would I joke about murder?” He would, actually, joke about certain murders. The reason he wasn’t was because he needed to look like a committed crewmate here. It was working. White pushed his vote through, silently considering his options.

Cyan shifted her gaze to him, and then back to the group. Purple looked to Blue. “Well, Captain?”

Blue nodded and confirmed his vote. “I’m sorry. I can’t...” he sighed. “I can’t fathom it, but we need to get rid of a dangerous element.”

Lime’s screaming was lost when Purple typed a few things into her tablet and his mic cut out. Purple looked towards Black. “Thank you for coming with me, Black.” The man simply grunted in assent and confirmed his vote. Red grinned under his visor as he voted for Lime. Purple touched the button.

Lime’s vote had been squandered when he was still flailing and trying to get away from Red. Blue sighed, calling over Black. “We need to vent the bodies. I’m sorry, but could you help out again, Black?”

The other man nodded. Purple motioned to Cyan, explaining some things that Cyan nodded to and seemed to take in. Red could never see why Cyan asked for explanations. Hadn’t the noob gotten the gist of it already? Still, what was he to do. With the help of those two, Green’s body was pushed into the airlock. Blue and Black followed with Yellow’s body. Red dragged Lime with him as they moved closer and closer to the airlock.

“No! Please, please believe me...” Lime’s wails of desperation echoed through the Skeld. Suddenly the ship felt a lot emptier. Cyan hit the button and Red stepped into the airlock, tossing Lime inside with the bodies and whatever trash they’d accumulated that week.

Blue looked over. “Any last words, Lime?”

The flustered man mouthed something that Red couldn’t make out. Blue shook his head. Purple and Black looked away. Cyan watched morosely through the shipside window. Red stepped back and nodded solemnly to Blue. White hit a button and the shipside door leading into the airlock closed. Their captain’s finger landed on the other button.

With a deafening boom, the contents of the airlock were vented into space. The hatch doors closed. Cyan was watching Lime drift away, the flailing body slowing its movements as it spiralled further and further away. Red moved up to her, placing a hand on the glass.

“Unfortunate for him, huh. The vacuum of space isn’t pleasant,” he murmured. It made him subconsciously readjust the air pipe leading from his pack to his helmet. “But at least we only have one more imposter to go, right?”

Cyan nodded wordlessly. Red squeezed her shoulder before moving to look at the others. “Let’s keep going. The ship isn’t going to run itself.” Without further complaint, they dispersed.

Code quietly followed Red with her eyes, watching him disappear to navigation again. He had said that, with that kind of smile in his voice? She looked back to her mentor. “Hey, Purple, you doing alright?”

The more experienced crewmate scoffed. “No, absolutely not! The last time this happened to me, we figured out who the insurgents were pretty quick. And then we went on with our jobs. We’re at five now! And...” she paused in her examination of storage wires. “I don’t think we made the right call.”

“Hm?” Code asked. “I dunno, it seemed pretty clear, but... I wish I had more information.”

“So do I,” Purple replied. “This doesn’t make any sense. You mind talking with me?”

Code shook her head. “You’re alright to talk to. Better than asking Blue or Red for company. ‘N Black doesn’t talk.”

Purple looked up, scutinizing Code for a moment. “Well, if anything, you’re not nearly as anxious as before.”

Code looked at her. “I guess.”

The two worked in silence for a bit. Footsteps led to familiar boots, and Code looked to the side from the distributors to find White plugging his tablet into the data node. “You two doing alright?” he asked quietly.

“No, not at all,” Purple replied.

Code shook her head. “I don’t understand, at all.” Why the rebels’ problem was solved by murdering innocent crewmates. Why Imposters had to get on these ships in the first place. How someone that could be innocent was thrown into an airlock and left to suffocate and die. So many quandaries. It hurt to think about. Code tried to keep her head empty and finished calibrating the energy distributors.

“Yeah. Hey, Purple, I wanna do somethin’,” White remarked. “Mind coming with? It’s just to cafeteria.”

Code couldn’t read his emotions. He’d kept his visor as stubbornly opaque as hers. Moreover, the slight quiver in his voice wasn’t any indicator whatsoever. Purple finished up fixing the wires in electrical again before she looked at the man. “If you’re going to, might be a good time for it. I had a few thoughts as well.”

Code couldn’t quite understand, but went along with it anyways. White unplugged his tablet. “Alright. You coming with, Cyan?”

“Me? Uh, might as well... I was thinking of stopping by administration first, to check on everyone, but I’ll be there in a bit,” she remarked. Purple and White nodded between each other, and the three left electrical together.

Code’s quick check of the holographic mapping table revealed two people in nav, one heading into storage, and the three of them in admin. She gave them a thumbs-up. Or, well, tried. They were both gone. Her suit beeped an alarm that came up moments later in her visor. “An... emergency meeting?”

She walked back to the cafeteria. White, shaking slightly, had his hand on the big red button. Purple had her hand holding back the glass cover. Black and Red walked in from the right, and Blue came up behind her and nearly spooked her. Code hopped into her seat.

White tapped his fingers against the table, still standing. “I want to talk.”

“About?” Red asked, trying to joke around and failing. He dropped the tone pretty fast. “Never mind. Let me guess... do you think Lime was the right call?”

White nodded. “It doesn’t sit right with me. I think he was innocent.”

“People plead for their lives all the time,” Blue remarked, hands crossed on the table. “Even the rebels that know what they’re signing up for can struggle to accept being ejected from an airlock.”

White shook his head. “There you go again, justifying his death! You always take control of the conversation, Cap’n.” The quiver in his voice grew more pronounced when he paused. Searching for the right words, and finally settling on his next statement. “Maybe that’s what I’m scared of.”

Code slowly rose from the position she was sitting in. Oh. That was unexpected. Purple whipped her head around to look into White’s visor. “You are _not_ implying that Blue’s the other imposter, are you?”

“Either that or you’re playing us too and there’s two of them!” White remarked. “Hanging out with Cyan gives you the perfect alibi, but the last couple of days you guys have been alone. And what happened?! Two kills, one in medbay and the other outside admin!”

Code striaghtened up significantly. “H-hey, that’s, uh, not sound logic!”

Red nodded. “It sounds like the only people you aren’t sussing out are me and Black. I can for sure confirm Purple and Cyan aren’t impsoters, though. Otherwise Cyan would’ve been dead a week ago!”

Black nodded his head. “Don’t think it’s Red. He’d be moving around a lot more.”

White slammed a fist on the table and pointed. “Unless you two have been sucking each other’s dicks all game, you’re not exempt either.”

Blue’s displeasure was radiating off of him. “So you called this meeting to accuse everyone?! That’s a goddamn waste of our time, White.”

“I have _evidence_ ,” his opponent hissed. “And for one thing, if you wanted to vote out a common thread you’d vote out Red, hypocrite.”

The crewmate waved frantically. “Hey! That’s not true, I wasn’t around for the second, I walked into Yellow finding the body!”

“Maybe you _vented_ ,” White hissed back. “Because I’m pretty sure there are two imposters and the last time we were gathered at this table was a double kill.”

Blue shook his head. “Ugh. Fine. White, stand down for a moment.” The crewmate quivered but held his ground, and Blue sighed louder. “Okay, fine. We know that there were two single kills before the last one. Does anyone have specific details they’d like to bring up from the last couple of days?”

Black shook his head. “Not really.”

White kept his visor pointed at Red. “He came into navigation late before our first meeting, didn’t he?”

Black paused. “Yes, Red did. But unless you were using the vents, getting from reactor to navigation takes at least thirty minutes, at a good sprint.”

“He wouldn’t have had to,” Purple replied. “The body was pretty old.”

“Still. We could say by that logic you and Cyan are the people we need to eject.” Red replied. “You were both together the whole time. If none of us saw your movements, it’s possible you’re just covering for each other.”

White locked onto Code. “I don’t believe for a second you’re some newbie.”

Code jolted backwards. She’d all but erased her presence during the argument, and seemed shocked that White had even mentioned her. “Wh-what?”

“Oh, you aren’t fooling me,” White hissed. “You’ve been buddied up with Purple, sure, but I haven’t seen you speak up in your own defense this entire time! You’re trying to slip under the radar, aren’t you?” He pointed an accusatory finger.

Both Blue and Purple shifted uneasily, glancing at each other. Purple spoke first. “White, if Blue isn’t an imposter, I’m not an imposter, and I’m pretty sure Cyan isn’t either. She said so herself, she didn’t get any Company training.”

“She should’ve!!”

Code peeped. “W-well, uh, my meeting kind of got interrupted.” She took a breath and tried to steady her shaking hands. “What happened was, um, we were going through standard procedure? Right? And then, well, before we could get into tthe hands-on section, uh, our instructor got a call from his supervisor. And then, well, after that he looked really pale and told us to follow him. We skipped the hands-on section and went straight to ship assignment.” She tugged at her suit gloves. “So, uh, when Purple was showing me stuff, well, I really didn’t know what to do. I’m getting pretty good at it, though.”

White leaned closer to her. “Then you’ve taken a medical scan, right?”

Code shook her head. “I haven’t gotten it assigned, so no.”

White seemed to be narrowing his eyes further when he leaned closer. “Funny. The only people who haven’t scanned are you and Purple.”

Blue slammed the table. “You’re insinuating that the person I know best is a fucking insurgent, White. Unless you have a point you better tread carefully.”

“Oh, please,” White responded, briefly shooting a glare towards Blue. “The Imposters can shapeshift, can’t they? Are you sure that person is really your sister?”

Red scowled. “You know what? I’m pretty sure Purple and Cyan are safe. So if you’re going to keep suspecting them, then I’m pretty sure _you’re_ the imposter we need to watch out for. Tearing the group apart isn’t going to solve this situation.”

“I’m just adding some healthy skepticism to everyone’s thoughts!”

“You’re being paranoid,” Black replied. “I don’t think it’s Blue. Don’t think it’s Cyan. Don’t think it’s Purple or Red. Maybe we were right on Lime. All we need to do is throw you.”

Purple nodded, her face grim. “I think that might be our safest option here, too.”

White reeled back like he’d been shot. “No _fucking_ way. I’m actually doing all my goddamn tasks and you think I’m the imposter?”

Code looked between them all, unsure. So unsure. She finally settled on Black. “Black, uh, I think you’re as trustworthy as Purple. Whatever you two decide, well, I’m going with.”

Blue nodded. “Safe bet.”

Black looked to White, and Code could make out his hardened glare as his visor briefly became translucent. “I say we vote him out.”

“I agree,” Purple replied. “I thought you’d bring up something else, but the moment you started suspecting Cyan and I, you lost your credibility.”

“You should _not_ be voting me out,” White scowled. “If anything, take out Red next! He’s been all sorts of shady since we’ve started working on the ship!”

Red raised his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. “Me?! It’s been a week and a half! The most suspicious thing I’ve done is sit on the admin table for an hour and a half. And crawl down the ladder to crew quarters kind of weird-“

Black looked at him. “You did that?”

“The table was for a good cause, I was trying to figure out where Green and Pink went one time when they were both alive. The ladder thing is irrelevant,” Red replied. “Still! It isn’t me, I’ve been doing more tasks than you have!”

“Really!?” White looked ready to throttle Red over the table. He instead side-stalked a little closer to Code. She noticed. “I haven’t seen you scan either, come to think of it!”

Black motioned. “He’s safe. I saw him scan.” Code pushed her buttons. Her vote was locked.

“Then it’s Red and Black if this is wrong!” White screamed. “God! We’re all getting fucking played and until we figure it out I’m not ceding the floor!”

Blue shook his head and pushed a button on his tablet. “I’ve heard enough. Some people are not meant for a month of mindless tasks, nevermind the whole revolution thing. If you’re really that discontent you can figure it out in space.” Code looked to him.

“Really? We’re also voting White out?” she asked. No one had noticed her quick vote.

Red nodded, clapping her on the back. “Think of it this way. If we were right on Lime, then we win. If we weren’t right on Lime, we’re now pretty sure one of them is White, and we can think about it from there.”

Code raised a brow, though no one could see it. “But didn’t he say he believed Lime was innocent? I mean, I kinda think so too...”

Purple scoffed. “Now I’m sure he must have used our conversation against us, Cyan. Saying Lime was innocent and accusing us in the same minute, that’s likely a deflection tactic.”

“Maybe we’ve got a third imposter right here,” White hissed. “And a fourth, and a fifth. This whole ship’s full of ghosts and imposters, that’s what this is! I refuse to get gaslit by this.”

Black silently pushed his vote. “Not gaslighting. Just logic.”

Red shrugged. “Fine by me! If all that evidence was just coincidental circumstance, that’s not evidence, that is just super unlucky.”

Purple nodded. “I’m sure we’ll get that medical scan at some point. We still have a week left before we reach the relay anyways.” She tapped her button. “As long as nothing happens, then I’m fine with this vote.”

Code looked to her panel. Four- no, five votes. White had decided to vote, and Code had a sneaking suspicion it was either Red or her. Why her? No idea, she’d been doing her tasks. She’d seen the company posters, the ones that said “See something, Say something” and “Be a good crewmate!”, and taken them to heart. So, why her?

She had not been aware that White had been within arm’s reach when the votes were tallied and hers came in first. Code saw that little white icon pop up below her name and her eyes widened.

Her helmet smashed into the cafeteria table moments later when White grabbed her and shoved her head down.


End file.
